Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual Machines

A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. The virtual machine consists of a set of specification and configuration files and is backed by the physical resources of a host. Every virtual machine has virtual devices that provide the same functionality as physical hardware are more portable, more secure, and easier to manage.

The infrastructure that supports virtual machines consists of at least two software layers, virtualization and management. In vSphere, ESXi provides the virtualization capabilities that aggregate and present the host hardware to virtual machines as a normalized set of resources. Virtual machines can run on ESXi hosts that vCenter Server manages.

You create and deploy virtual machines into your datacenter in a several ways. You can create a single virtual machine and install a guest operating system and VMware Tools on it. You can clone or create a template from an existing virtual machine, or deploy OVF templates.